39(j SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— L. 



Friday, September 2. 



Discussion on Education in Tropical Africa. Sir Theodore Morison, 

 Mr. Rivers Smith. Mr. Norman Young, Major A. G. Church. Miss 



S. BURSTALL. 



Sir Theodore Morison. — An Educational Policy for Tropical Africa. 

 (Read by Dr. Kimmins in the unavoidable absence of the author.) 



The official policy in regard to education in Tropical Africa now defined : it is to 

 * produce a better kind of African, not an inferior imitation of a European.' A sound 

 policy, but a hard one to put into practice. Indian experience shows that English 

 thought is very destructive of indigenous beliefs. In Nigeria, where a considerable 

 proportion of the people are Moslem, it may be possible to avoid ' denationalisation ' 

 hy drawing upon the rich stores of Islamic learning. In East Africa, where indigenous 

 culture is slight, the task is much harder. The best hope lies in giving education in 

 the vernacular. Do not teach in English at all, even in the University — if ever there 

 is one. Set to work at once to make Swahili the cultural language of East Africa. 

 Enrich it with translations ; hammer out a scientific terminology, form words and 

 phrases to express abstract thought. The object is to make Swahili a fit vehicle for 

 precise ideas. The Governments of East Africa must combine to set up a Translation 

 Bureau, as has been done at the Osmania University of Hyderabad. 



This is the most important item of educational policy in East Africa ; the second 

 is to train the hand and eye and teach the simpler arts of rural life, viz. : ploughing, 

 weaving, and the use of the potter's wheel. So direct both education and the 

 administration that it may be clear to the African that his own personal advantage 

 rather lies in developing the economic resources of his country than in becoming a 

 lawyer or a clerk. 



Mr. Rivers Smith. — The Education of the African Chief. 



The problem of the education of the African Chief is largely an administrative 

 problem, and must be regarded in its special relation to his position as the leader 

 of his people, and the change in that position which has come about as the result 

 of the necessity to make tribal autocracy conform to ordered government under 

 civilised rule. 



The best results are to be looked for by the adaptation to the demands of civilised 

 societies, of what can be retained of native social systems ; and so to-day we find a 

 marked tendency to develop systems of indirect rule in which native authorities are 

 encouraged, under the guidance of their European administrators, to accept a larger 

 measure of responsibility for the maintenance of law and order in the tribal unit ; 

 and eventually, through a natural process of evolution, rather than by an undue 

 insistence on Western systems, to enable that unit to find its natural expression in 

 the new social order which must grow as the result of impact with civilisation. 



One of the finest characteristics of the pagan African, in addition to his well- 

 developed communal sense, has been his loyalty to constituted authority as recognised 

 in the person of his chief. The successful growth of a system of indirect rule would 

 appear, therefore, to depend on the maintenance of the authority of the hereditary 

 head of the people. The education of the heirs to this authority must therefore 

 fit them to exercise that authority in accordance with the requirements of good 

 government, while maintaining what is best of their own social systems and adapting 

 them, where necessary, to the changed conditions. 



The first duty of the school must be to exercise care not to destroy a good African 

 by the inculcation of ideas and tastes which cannot find expression in an African 

 community ; the aim should be to produce perhaps a new but finer conception of 

 the African rather than a spurious imitation of the European. 



The young chief will eventually have to exercise judicial functions, and at least 

 those laws which native authorities are competent to administer should form a subject 

 of study. An elementary knowledge of procedure and of the administrative system 

 generally must be taught, and, above all, the pupil must be imbued with a sense of 

 civilised justice. But more important even than his magisterial duties are his social 



